From my Mac of the Week blog:

This week I decided to keep it simple, a nice Garden Vegetable Macaroni with Sharp Yellow Cheddar and Mild White Cheddar. It was simply amazing! A creamy delight. It’s very pungent and sharp in flavor and gives a subtle surprise of sweetness thanks to the addition of the grated carrot The best was reheating the next day, the sauce didn’t break and it was just as creamy as the night before. :

- 1/2 bag elbow macaroni
- 1/2 cup chopped broccoli
- 3/4 cup chopped brown mushrooms
- 1/2 cup zucchini julienne
- 1/4 cup grated carrot
- 2 1/2 tbsp fresh fennel
- 1 1/2 cup sharp yellow cheddar shredded
- 1 1/2 cup mild white cheddar shredded
- 1 tbsp dry mustard
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1/2 garlic clove grated
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter or margarine
- 1 tbsp flour
- water
- salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of water to boil. Add salt to the water. Drop in elbow macaroni and cook for 7-9 minutes or until the macaroni is al dente. Once macaroni is finished cooking, drain and set aside.

In a sauce pan begin making your cheese sauce. Heat pan on medium-high heat. Add margarine or butter and allow to melt fully before adding flour. Once you add flour, use a whisk to make sure all flour is incorporated with the melted butter. Add milk and grated garlic. Turn the heat to low and allow milk to heat up for about a minute or so and the garlic to flavor the milk. The reason i’m using such little milk is because this will allow the sauce to be really thick and also prevent it from breaking the next day when you want to re-heat. After about a minute or so return heat to medium and add cheddar cheese. Whisk to quickly melt. Then add White Cheddar and continue whisking. Once there are no lumps add dry mustard, fennel, salt and pepper, zucchini, broccoli, carrots and mushrooms and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes to soften the vegetables.

Once vegetables are soft, I like to add the macaroni directly to the sauce pot so I can ensure that everything is covered in cheesy goodness, after all it IS the star of the dish. Fold in macaroni with cheese and vegetables until it is fully incorporated.

Serve immediately

I love this dish because it’s filling and delicious and practically effortless to make.  The ingredients are so simple yet combined they bring so much flavor to the dish plus the acidity of the lemon cuts right through everything. It’s great for lunch or dinner and perfect in the summer since it is a cold dish.

- 1 package of orzo pasta
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup red onion diced
- 1/2 cup cucumber diced
- 1/2 cup sundried tomatoes chopped
- 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (optional)
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- salt and pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to boil. Drop in orzo and cook for 5-7 minutes or until al dente. Carefully strain (to be safe I would put a bowl underneath your strainer as orzo is pretty thin and small and can easily fall through strainer holes — you can scoop whatever drops in the bowl after straining)

Transfer strained orzo to a large bowl and allow to cool for 10 minutes occasionally stirring to release heat. Add olive oil and toss with orzo. Add lemon juice, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes & cheese and fold. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving. Serve cold

My friend Olivia recently started a blog Ohlivin! about her life in NYC and many of them contain a good amount about food.  I was rather inspired by this entry particularly the pasta dish. The though of a pistachio-lemon sauce to the pasta just sounded amazing.  I used Father’s Day as the perfect opportunity to try and create this dish since I am not in NYC and can’t order this.  I also found some big green bell peppers from our garden and decided to try my hand at making stuffed peppers. No meal would be complete without an adult beverage of sorts.  Both my parents are fans of wine however, I am not. The only wine based drink I like is sangria.  I noticed that we had an abundance of fruit in our kitchen as well so it was only natural I made some with white wine.

Farfalle in Lemon-Pistachio Sauce w/Peas

- 1 package farfalle pasta
- 1/2 cup finely ground pistachio (take unsalted pistachios and use a blender or food processor to grind down. I used a coffee grinder)
- 1/2 cup frozen peas
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 tbsp lemon zest
- 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- salt and pepper to taste

Bring a pot of water to boil. Add farfalle and cook for 8-10 minutes or until al dente. Heat a sauce pan on medium heat. Add olive oil and ground pistachios. Make sure all the pistachios are covered in oil. The pistachios in the oil should create a paste. Allow that too cook for 1-2 minutes once paste is formed. Add cream, peas, lemon zest and parmesan cheese. Cook for another 2 minutes or so and salt and pepper then remove from heat.

Once pasta is done cooking strain it and immediately add fresh lemon juice. Quickly toss then add to sauce and serve.

Stuffed Green Peppers

Now I had never made stuffed peppers before nor had I ever even eaten one.  Instead of looking up ways to make stuffed pepper I just went ahead and winged it. It still turned out pretty delicious it just got a teensy bit messy so just a forewarning if you want to try this out.

- 1 8 oz. package cream cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped white mushrooms
- 1/4 cup white onion chopped
- 1 small garlic clove minced
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella/cheddar cheese (optional)
- salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take each pepper and cut the top off. Take out center and seeds of each pepper and rinse. In a bowl combine cream cheese, mushrooms, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. Fold all the ingredients together (don’t worry about the onion and garlic being raw, they will cook in the oven). Scoop cream cheese mixture into each pepper until nearly to the top. Don’t fill it all the way to the top because you don’t want it to flow out of the pepper once it melts. Top each pepper generously with shredded cheese.

Place each pepper in a casserole dish. Place in oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until cheese on top is a nice and crusty.

White Sangria

The great thing about sangria is that it’s extremely easy and you can virtually put in any kind of fruit you want in it.  It’s better though to prepare a couple hours in advance of your meal just to allow all the fruit to settle into the wine to really give it the sweet fruity flavor found in sangria. Here’s what I used:

- 1 bottle of white wine
- 1/4 cup sliced Granny Smith apples
- 1/4 cup sliced white peach
- 1/4 cup sliced pear
- 1/4 cup fresh raspberries
- 1/4 cup fresh blackberries
- 1/4 cup fresh strawberries
- 1/4 cup sliced nectarines
- 2 slices lemon
- 1/4 cup sugar

Combine all ingredients into a pitcher. Stir to make sure all sugar is incorporated. Let it sit for a couple hours in the fridge before serving.